Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Sara Beth has been super droolly this week. Her top two incisors came in last week and now her bottom two are struggling to poke through, and so Sara Beth is doing her best impression of a faucet. Adding to that, she and I have had allergies this week, so add a runny nose to the mix, and you have a recipe for a gooey mess. She is also starting to work on her emotions, and like most things, she does it with intensity. She can go from laughing and giggling to crying and throwing a tantrum in seconds. This past week she was in her first music class laughing and crying interchangeably. We have tried this week to take advantage of the fact that it is very easy to make her laugh hysterically. Here, Sara Beth cannot stop laughing as Heather flips the Play-Doh container around.

In this case, Sara Beth and I were playing a game of Peek-a-Boo. We were just getting ready to go to church, when she decides to start running through the house. I hide behind the counter and then pop out and snap this picture. Sara Beth has picked up an affinity for bringing her purse with her when ever we go in the car. She will pack a couple of her small toys along with her sippy cup into her purse, and only then will she be ready to head out the door.

Sara Beth loves to "help" with the chores. She will carry her silverware from the table to the dishwasher. She will ask to throw away trash. She loves it when I give her some junk mail and help her throw it in the recycle bin in the garage. In addition, whenever she sees us begin to sweep the floor, she will attempt to take the broom out of our hands and do the sweeping herself.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Sara Beth loves her scents. I, personally, do not have a good sense of smell, so I use whatever soap is the cheapest, and I buy it the bars of soap in a 24 pack. Sara Beth, on the other hand, takes after her mom, and has an acute sense of smell. She loves to have a spritz of lavender perfume before going to bed each night, giving a "Mmmmmmm" sound every time. This week, she has gotten into the habit of climbing into the bath tubs and grabing the fancy soaps that Heather uses, and then walking around the house with them. The bar of dove soap has a small bite mark in it. Apparently her sense of taste is not as refined.

The cold winter is starting to ease up, so that going outside is a plesant experience. Sara Beth went outside and immediately started to collect leaves to put in her stroller while I started to take down the Christmas lights.

I don't know for sure if Sara Beth has the light in her eyes or if she intended to give me this face when I continued to take pictures after she was done collecting the leaves.

Sara Beth's obsession with cars grows. Whenever a loud diesel truck or motorcycle revs its engine, she will try to mimic the noise. While Heather and I washed the mini, Sara Beth sat contentedly in my car pretending to drive it, and pulling our and reorganizing everything from kleenex to bubble gum to car openers, basically anything that was not bolted down. She was very sad after it was time to go in once the sun began to set.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Sara Beth has begun to climb on stuff. Some times this is good: when we want to feed her, we tell her "Go get in your chair" and she will go to the kitchen table, pull out her chair, and pull herself up into it. She will sit in her booster seat and start messing with the straps in an attempt to buckle herself down. If her tray is in reach, she will try to put that on too. By the time we come over with the food, she will be in her seat and ready to eat. Other times, we curtail her vertical escapades. I found her standing on the window sill proudly jumping after climbing on top of her play table and then stepping onto the window sill from there. I captured her on camera climbing into her shelves.

We also found her climbing into her crib. When we found her, she was already half way in. We decided that meant she was ready for her big girl bed, so I began to convert her crib by removing the outer rail. Sara Beth enjoyed the experience, but she did take time out of her busy schedule to pose for the camera and say "Cheese."

Once the crib was converted, she explored her new bed. It all worked out perfectly fine for the first couple of days. After we determined that her trash can should be put out of reach in the closet, everything was going smoothly. Until Monday at nap time. Sara Beth decided that she did not want to nap in her big girl bed. At all. So she cryed, pounded at her door, and generally made a comotion in her room for two hours instead of napping. It was not a fun experience for anyone. We converted her bed back into a crib for now. We'll see if she is ready for the big girl bed thing in another month or so.

Toland came over one night, and Sara Beth took to him after her initial shy period. She kept asking him to read different books to her.

It is amazing to see how much Sara Beth's look has changed in the past couple of weeks. I think I can start to imagine what she is going to look like when she is all grown up. It is a bitter sweet realization.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Sara Beth now thinks that as soon as the camera comes out, she needs to stop whatever she is doing and start saying "Cheese." She will then try to grab the camera out of our hands. This new behavior makes it much more difficult to capture her in the act of doing something cute. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in action: attempting to record the event without affecting it is impossible. Sara Beth had the drum straped around herself and was preparing to walk around like a member of the drum corps, but as soon as she saw the camera come out, she forgot all about her musical aspirations.

In the following case, she was tearing through Heather's makeup brushes. Heather had purchased a $1 set of makeup brushes that Sara Beth could call her own for Christmas, but that present didn't distract SB from her true desire: mommy's set of make up brushes. At first Heather told her "no" when Sara Beth asked to play with them, but Sara Beth said "please" so sweetly that Heather gave in. In no time, the brushes were strewn across the bathroom floor. She did stop her reorganization of the brushes to say "cheese" for the a picture.

If she doesn't realize she is being watched, she will continue in her inquisitive actions: like trying to plug in the mixer that she extracted from our kitchen cabinets (just like mommy). I am glad that Heather talked me into putting children safety covers on all the plugs in the house.

On a cold Saturday morning, Sara Beth decided that she wanted to go for a walk. So she went into her bedroom, and emerged with her scarf and hat that she dug out of the bottom drawer of her dresser. She then told us "ou-side" on the way to the front door. I added some shoes, mittens, and a coat to the outfit, but let her keep her pajamas on. If only I had dressed as well. I put on my running shoes, which work just fine in the summer time, but do not keep in the heat at all, since they conist of light fabric, a eight of an inch of rubber, and a strap. After going for a walk for half an hour, I brought Sara Beth back in side. She had a great time. I had to go run hot water over my feet to convince the blood to start flowing to my numb toes again.